Three Girls, a Guy, and a Van
by kali82
Summary: Road-tripping with the girls. Seemed like a fantastic idea at the time.


Disclaimer: I do not own Ten Inch Hero, or its characters, much as I love them. sans beta, so I apologize for spag or canon errors.

Notes: A Yuletide Madness fic that got out of hand, thanks to sailorhathor's excellent request details. Priestly is such a kook - he needed a little road trip fun too.

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><p>Road-tripping with the girls. Seemed like a fantastic idea at the time. Really: three fine ladies, one tricked out Trucker-mobile, and a long weekend. Two hours ago, it was Priestly's idea of the perfect vacation. Two hours ago, it had been the perfect vacation.<p>

Then Tish let out the little secret they'd been sitting on since the commitment ceremony - that their relationship had lasted about as long as Priestly's spray-on hair colour. There was a painfully long awkward silence while Jen and Piper processed the news. Priestly could see Jen trying to choose who to comfort, so he made it easy on her by crawling out his seat and into the back. When he drew the curtains, the girls took their cue and started fussing over Tish.

Priestly lay back on the fragrant cushions - really, he was getting a contact high just sitting in Trucker's hippymobile - and tried to ignore the twist in his gut. It wasn't like he was still messed up over Tish, because he wasn't. Reality sadly lacked when compared to fantasy there, or maybe truth failed to match delusion, but whatever. He'd had his chance; it didn't work out. Maybe Tish was right - he was the friend boy type, not boy friend material. So here he was, friend boying it up with three awesome chicks. And it sucked.

After a while, the girls quieted down. Priestly was about to risk climbing back to his seat when Jen's voice stopped him cold.

"Guess I should tell you guys something, too."

Priestly froze. Jen had relationship type news. She was getting married to fuzzy22. No, worse. She was going to have fuzzy babies. 22 of them. No, even worse. Things were going great, getting serious, and she was going to move to be with fuzzy22. What a nightmare.

Priestly was going to have to learn the guy's actual name. He loved that Jen's boyfriend was named fuzzy22. The potential for mockery was limitless. And Trucker jumped every time Priestly asked about 'the fuzz'. But worse than having to learn the guy's name was the idea of Jen moving away, leaving them, leaving him. That opened up a world of sad.

Sounded like Piper and Tish thought so too. They were using their 'poor baby' voices and someone was snuffling. Wait, Jen was snuffling - he knew her every sniff and that was the 'I'm too proud to cry but I feel like shit' sniff/sigh combo that went with the extra-wrinkled forehead and moderate lip bite. The one that made Priestly want to hit things and then do the dance of the seven grill aprons so she'd smile again.

"So you're not even talking on the interchat?" Tish asked.

"No," Jen replied in her 'can we not talk about this?' voice before sniffing again. Priestly took a moment to wonder why he was such a horrible person that Jen's sadness was making him feel kinda happy - probably the effects of Trucker's special incense - before bursting through the curtains.

"Beauteous ladies, I am here to dry your tears and make you smile," he announced, but then had to stop to untangle his mohawk from some hanging bobbly things. Still, it had the desired effect: Jen stopped sniffing and started giggling as she extracted his hair from Trucker's decor.

Once he was seated again, a safe distance from all dangling objects, Priestly restarted his campaign to cheer up Jen. First, he and Tish engaged in their trademark banter, which ended when she pointed out that baby giraffes moved with more grace and coordination than he did. And never got their horns stuck in trees.

Priestly couldn't think of a good comeback, so he switched to a game of 'who's in that car?' It was one of Jen's favourites, and she told the best stories about the occupants of the cars they passed anyway, so everyone let her take the lead. Priestly caught Piper's eye in the rearview mirror as Jen spun her tales. "Thank you," she mouthed, and he nodded.

The rest of the day flowed by smoothly. Lunch was hero sandwiches - from the shop, part of Trucker's 'have a vacation weekend on me' kit - and fresh o.j. that Julia had squeezed. It came with extra pulp and lots of seeds that Piper apologized for but Tish declared were perfect for spitting at other cars, so they all took turns hanging out the passenger window. Most of the seeds ended up stuck to the side of the van.

They found a great spot near the beach to stop for the night. Priestly had planned to be self-sacrificing and offer to sleep in a front seat, but Piper pulled out a tent that Noah had lent her and Tish produced an air mattress and said she'd join her. Priestly looked at Jen and tried for a Groucho Marx eyebrow wiggle and leer. "Looks like it's just you and me, kid," he growled.

The girls all giggled and then sent him off to find firewood, saying it was a manly man's job. Since all he had to do was walk to the campground store and buy a bag of sticks, Priestly wasn't sure how manly it actually was, but when his ladies gave him a task, he did it. He hauled the wood back to their campsite and set about building a fire. For once, his youthful firebug phase came in handy, and he grilled up a mixed dinner of tofu dogs and mystery-meat dogs, as well as some vegetables the girls insisted on. And then s'mores galore. Maybe it was just him, but feeding his ladies made him feel way more manly than fetching wood did.

Piper sat by the fire and sketched while Jen pointed out constellations to Tish. Tish got bored pretty fast and started making up her own. Priestly couldn't resist, so he showed them his personal favourites - the acrobats' sixty-nine, the Stratocaster, and the x-wing fighter (so he had an inner Star Wars geek, who doesn't?). It was getting pretty late when Jen finally announced she was going to turn in.

He insisted that the ladies take their turns changing in the van first, so by the time Priestly climbed in, it was warm and smelled of soap and flowers and girl. He quickly swapped into his jimjam pants and wedged himself against the van wall. Out of nowhere he was feeling awkward, like he was Boaz confronted with 'girls' and other terrifying creatures, rather than Priestly sharing a large mattress with his oldest and closest friend Jen, same as he'd done lots of times before.

There was a knock on the van door. "You decent?" Jen asked.

"Rarely, and usually by accident," he answered. Jen laughed and opened the door. Priestly lost his breath for a moment at the sight of her in a pale tank top, her skin ice white in the moonlight. Her dark eyes gleamed and her smile made his chest ache. To cover his discomfort, he swept back the light blanket and said "come into to my parlour" in his best Dracula accent.

They lay side by side in the dark of the van. Priestly stole glances at Jen when he thought she wasn't looking, trying to sort out when her eyes got so big, her lips so soft-looking, her hair so pretty. She chatted on for a while about the trip, and how happy she was for Trucker and Zo, for Piper and Noah and Julia. After a while, she wound down and he wondered if he should say something. But he didn't think she'd want one of his usual jokes, and for a guy who spent almost all his time with women, he kind of sucked at sensitive girl-talk. The silence stretched out.

Finally, when he was on the verge of making an excuse to leave, Jen rolled onto her side to face him.

"I'm jealous of them, y'know?" she said. "And I kinda wonder if I blew my big chance at having that."

"With fuzzy?" Priestly asked. "You think you were gonna have happy ever after with a guy named after a fetish subculture?"

Jen huffed a laugh. "That's furries, idiot. And he has a real name. And I don't know about happily ever after, but still..."

"Look, um," he said, trying to come up with something, anything. "Well, you know I thought I'd be happy with Tish. Wrong. Sometimes what we think will make us happy isn't what... will make us happy." He finished lamely.

Jen hmmmed her agreement, but asked "how do you know it's not just me? Maybe I'm not going to get a happy ending."

"Don't be stupid," Priestly said before remembering that insults rarely made girls feel better. "I mean, you're awesome. You're like the coolest, smartest, funniest chick I know. Someone's gonna figure that out and steal you from me, us, and you'll go have the best life of all of us."

"And leave you behind? Never!"

He could see her grin in the dim light and felt her hand brush his. He grabbed her fingers and squeezed, rolling on his side, too. The movement brought him closer to Jen than he expected, and Priestly could feel her breath against his neck. He shivered.

"Cold?"

"You gonna offer to cuddle to share body heat?" he asked, trying for lecherous but sounding more hopeful to his ears.

"I'm happy to cuddle just to cuddle," Jen said. "You know that. Not like anyone wants to cuddle me for any other reasons. That word sounds stupid when you say it over and over."

"Cuddle?" As soon as he said it, Jen started to giggle. "Cuddly, cuddly cuddling? Cuddle, cuddle, cuddle!"

By the time he was done, she was curled against his chest, laughing into his 'you rock my small, self-centered universe' shirt.

"I don't know about anyone else, but I'll cuddle with you any way, for any reason, any time you let me." He had meant it to be reassuring, to cheer her up, but as her soft body relaxed into his he realized it was a lie. He wanted to hold her in a particular way, for a very specific reason, as often as she'd let him. Holy shit! He had the hots for his best friend.

"Thanks, Priestly." Jen reached up and patted his mohawk. "Right back atcha." She tipped her head up and leaned in. Just as her lips brushed his jaw, Priestly tipped his head down to look at her and their lips met.

Wide brown eyes stared up at him as they froze in place. His brain felt like it was racing, but only one word came through: Yes! Yes! Yes! Then Jen closed her eyes and he felt her lips press harder against his, and even that one thought burned away.

Days later, Priestly emerged from paradise to find himself still in Trucker's van with Jen in his arms, her warm skin turned pale by the moonlight. So maybe it hadn't been days, but it had seemed to go on forever and he felt awesome. From the shy grin on her face, he figured Jen did too.

Priestly guessed that tomorrow there were going to be 'what's going on' conversations and 'breaking the news' and other stuff. But for now, he was holding Jen and had only one conscious thought as he fell asleep: road-tripping with the girls was definitely the best idea ever.


End file.
